


The Lunch Thief: A Whodunit Tale (in 2 or 3 parts)

by exfactor



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Humor, Mystery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 19:50:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11562135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exfactor/pseuds/exfactor
Summary: Clarke's lunch goes missing. Whodunit?





	The Lunch Thief: A Whodunit Tale (in 2 or 3 parts)

The first time it happens is like any other summer day in the city.

Unbearably hot. Sticky hot. Funky hot. The streets reeking of the sweet and sour scent of garbage kind of hot.

The only respite from the sun can be found in the shadows of skyscrapers and the humid dungeons of subway stations.

Even inside the air conditioned havens of office buildings, Manhattan could lose some of its luster in the summertime.

There's something about a New York City summer that compounds all of a person's tiny mistakes and problems, that magnifies them into sure signs of the apocalypse.

"I could have sworn I packed lunch today,” Clarke huffed. “Did you see me bring in a brown paper bag?" Somehow, Clarke's hair had found its way to that wavy-messy state that more often means it's quitting time rather than lunch time.

"Good grief, Griff, I don't know. I've had my nose buried in this project all morning."

She shouldn't be surprised. Raven's nose is always buried in a project. Three computer monitors spread across her desk and Clarke has to figure out which two to poke her head between to get Raven's attention.

"I'm hunnnnnngry." The whine is punctuated by a growl from her stomach that finally gets Raven's attention.

"Order something. Or go to the deli downstairs. Or check the back of the fridge. I think I have some leftovers from last week that I put in there."

"No," It's petulant and she feels like she should be crossing her arms and stomping her foot with each word. "I want what I packed. Falafel wrap, homemade hummus and veggies, Oreos."

"Yum," Raven says as an aside, eyes back on the monitors. “That hummus you make is A+, Clarke.”

"Not helping, Raven."  
  
"I'm sure it was just a mistake."  
  
Clarke pouts, but Raven's eyes are flashing quickly between the first monitor to the third and back to the second.  
  
"Fine."  
  
She convinces herself that it's not that big a deal. It can be only one of three options: 1) She forgot to bring her lunch and it's sitting out on the tiny counter of her kitchen quickly spoiling in the city's oppressive summer heat. 2) Someone took it by mistake. Heck, she's guilty of taking a few things here and there. With a shared kitchen on each floor of this massive building, it's bound to happen on occasion. Or, 3) someone took it on purpose. But no, why would an employed, mature, responsible adult do that?  
  
She settles for a floppy, greying ham and cheese sandwich from the deli downstairs and tries not to think too hard about the protestations rumbling from her stomach the remainder of the afternoon.

 

\--

 

The next time it happens is like any other summer day in the city. Bodies move slowly from one subway platform to the next, then out onto the oppressive heat of the asphalt. Sweat drips and drips and drips impossibly more. Even with an airy, short dress and sandals, it doesn't stop, leaving a stain or two or three on lower backs, under arms, and in the pits of knees.

But then, alas, the cool air conditioned relief of the office. Until five minutes pass and that relief turns into frigid misery as sweat refuses to dry, instead forcing the body into a slow, ice cold death.

There's something about a New York summer that compounds all of a person's tiny mistakes and problems, that magnifies them into sure signs of the apocalypse.  
  
"It happened again!" This time she doesn't have to poke her head between two of Raven's computers. No, this time, Raven's caught halfway between her desk and the bathroom as Clarke accosts her in the hall of the 50th floor.   
  
"Again!" Raven shouts in response and keeps moving. It's another summer in New York City and Clarke's worked up about something new and something she could not care less about.   
  
But her movement is halted when Clarke's fingers wrap around her arm and jerk her backwards. "Again!"  
  
"What are we talking about?"  
  
Clarke’s eyes narrow and her jaw drops, like Raven’s committed the deepest of sins. "My lunch! It's gone again!"  
  
"Oh. That."  
  
"This is important, Raven."  
  
"I’m sorry, I didn't realize." She’s anything but sorry, but it’s Clarke’s turn not to care less.  
  
"There's nothing you need to apologize for, just listen to me rant and rave for a moment."  
  
A woman from another office passes them by in the hall and Clarke stops talking, suddenly concerned. Raven hopes the concern is mostly about the ridiculousness of the situation.

"Rant away."  
  
"We should probably go back to your office."  
  
"Top secret, huh? You think she did it? I can ask her. She's pretty hot anyway and she came out of the law office so maybe if it's her we can extort her or something. I bet she’s got some money."  
  
"Will you be quiet?

When they’re back in the privacy of Raven’s office, Clarke sits on the corner of her desk and leans across her keyboard, giving Raven no other choice but to pay attention.

“I can’t believe it happened again.

“Did you put your name on your lunch bag?”

“No,” Clarke responds like it’s the dumbest question she’s ever heard.

“Have you considered that maybe someone else is bringing a similar lunch bag and taking yours by mistake?”

Clarke springs off her desk, nearly knocking off a pencil, a stack of file folders, and some crumpled trash. “But don’t they know what they’re packing for their own lunches!?”

“Maybe someone else packs their lunch.” Clarke freezes in place. Summer in New York and she’s lost her logical mind. Raven continues, “It’s not an unreasonable next step to write your name on the bag, Clarke.”

“I hate you.”

“Why?”

“Just let me rant a little while longer?”

“No. Put your name on your bag next time and get back to work, you lazy bum,” Raven retorts, throwing the crumpled trash in Clarke’s direction.

  
\--  
  
  
In fact, all of the times that it happens are all like regular old summer days in the city. She wishes the days felt special, because these normal, boring days where the only excitement is her stolen lunch are really wearing her down.  
  
There's something about a New York summer that compounds all of a blah blah blah…It’s too hot to even think about tiny mistakes and the apocalypse.

"Raven, it's not funny anymore. I'm starving." She considers falling to the floor, pulling herself along the carpet and ending in a dramatic faint like she’s seen in cartoons, but Raven’s eyes aren’t even looking in her direction.

"Ok, one: no you're not. Two: What makes you think I’m stealing your lunches?”

"I didn’t accuse you, I’m just saying that it’s not funny, whoever it is.”

Raven doesn’t deign a verbal response, just looks up briefly to find Clarke plopping into the soft cushion of one of the chairs across from her desk.

“The first one was that homemade falafel wrap with hummus and veggies. I made that just for lunch, it wasn't even leftovers!" The vowels are drawn out in her last sentence, as she sinks further and further into the chair.

The keyboard clicks away, then, a distracted, "What a shame."

"And then there was the tuna sandwich on the homemade bread. That was the first time I've ever made bread. With the machine that my mom got me."

Clarke says it like her mom is a treasured, esteemed, and respected part of her life and not the woman that she ignores on most phone calls.

"I’d bet that was good.”

"And the Lunch Thief even stole the PBJs that I've been packing lately."

Raven looks up this time, all devilish smirk and crinkled eyes. "Are you sure those weren't gourmet PBJs with artisanal peanut butter from nuts you harvested by hand?"

"This is serious, Raven."

"Of course. Just stop bringing you lunch. Eat with me."

"You don't eat lunch until 4pm most days."

"I'm busy. Which, speaking of..." Her eyes trail back on computer

"I just want to eat my own lunches that I pack."

"Well, you better figure out a solution."

Clarke’s hands run through her hair a few times and she has this look that Raven has described as ‘either you’re thinking or you’re constipated,’ before she bounds out of Raven’s office chair and out of her office completely.

Just when Raven is back into the flow of her project, Clarke hurries in again, this time with a piece of paper in her hand fluttering against the pep in her step. She winds her way around Raven’s desk to slam the paper atop her keyboard.

Raven picks it up.

  
  
_Missing: Brown Paper Bag Lunches_  
_Please check the name before taking the bag._  
_Thanks! C. Griffin, Suite 5000_

  
  
"If I saw that note, I might start stealing your lunches, actually."

Her heart sinks. "Is it bad?"

"It's a little obnoxious."

Back around the desk, back to plopping in the office chair.

"Well what am I supposed to do?"

"Got me, Griff, I don't bring my lunch."

 

\--

 

“Any word on the lunches?”

“Still stolen.”

“No one responded to your note?” The corner of her mouth is turned up and Raven looks like she’s on the verge of a full belly laugh, but Clarke’s past the point of Raven’s tomfoolery.

“No and I’m just getting more and more pissed. Maybe I need to take some time off. I don’t think it’s normal to be this upset about a few stolen lunches.”

“What if I told you that I have a plan for how to catch this brilliant, masterminded jerk?”

“I don’t know Raven,” Clarke says, slumping back into Raven’s comfy office chair. More often than not, the chair has been her second home over the past few weeks. “I just got assigned to that big project with Kane.”

“Come on, Clarke. It’s not like you don’t have a little free time to have some fun at the office.”

“Since when do you have fun at the office, Miss Three Monitors and Get Out of Here Clarke I Have a Big Project?”

“Well maybe I’m trying to liven things up here.” For the first time ever, since she’s ever, ever come into Raven’s office, Raven moves out from behind her desk and perches on the edge, leaning over Clarke like she’s got a secret. “It’s not like you love every minute you spend here. It will be an adventure, I promise.”

“You think catching the Lunch Thief is going to be fun?”

“I do because…” she leans back and digs in her desk to pull out a small box from the locked bottom drawer, “check this out.”

Clarke leans in, eyes wide. "What is it?" She asks in a stage whisper.

"I picked up one of these this weekend."

Clarke takes the box from Raven's hand and turns it over and over, reading each word of warning.

Clarke’s eyebrows seem to be stuck in a permanent raise, like a bad job at the threading salon. "A spy cam?"

"Genius, right?"

"Is this legal?"

"Keep your voice down." Raven snatches the box back and puts it in her desk drawer, as though someone could come in any minute. Clarke knows that only she likes Raven enough to barge into her office without permission.

"Well?"

"It's a gray area."'

"Great. Well, I'm sure the law firm in the suite down the hall will have a blast with that."

"They're a mergers and acquisitions firm, Clarke."

"So?" Clarke’s not entirely sure what a mergers and acquisitions firm does, except maybe mergers and acquisitions. But what they’re merging and acquiring would require research she just doesn’t care to delve into.

"So, unless a spy camera company wants to buy out another spy camera company, I don't think we have anything to worry about from them." Aha. That’s what they do.

"Well they know the law. At least better than either one of us."

"Should I return it?" The world quiets for a moment as Clarke makes her decision. She can almost hear Raven hold her breath. She’s never seen Raven get so excited about something at work, save for the time that Clarke brought her a quiche she’d made from scratch.

“No. Let’s do this.”

 

\--

 

  
She hasn’t stayed after work in years. Well, in a year. She’s only been at the office for a little over a year. No one’s complaining about her work ethic, or questioning the quality of her work, so she doesn’t ever feel bad for clocking out when she’s supposed to.

It’s Raven that’s the loon, working late into the night some nights, three monitors on her desk and an extra change of clothes in the file cabinet.

Though it’s also Raven who now has her own office.

But today is different. Well, very different. She’s staying after work. And as badly as she wants to make a show of clocking extra time for Kane, she can’t because she’s staying after work for something that’s entirely non-work related.  
  
"Ready to check out the footage?"

Clarke’s barely been able to concentrate all day. Raven, too, by the looks of it. Trash litters her office and her hair is sticking up like she’s been pulling it in and out of her ponytail all day.

"I'm ready to nail this bastard once and for all."

Raven clicks play on the footage recorded earlier in the day, then skips to lunch time. A few people stroll in and out of the building’s 50th floor kitchen, washing dishes, using the vending machine, talking on the phone, but no one at the fridge.

More than thirty minutes go by and she’s ready to call it a day. Staying after work is one thing, staying after work for thirty minutes watching an illegally recorded video of people in the office kitchen is another.

Until she sees the first suspect.

Her heart pounds.

This could be the Lunch Thief.

She squints her eyes and wishes that the camera had a higher resolution.

"I've seen her come in and out of the kitchen before. She's in that office by the elevators. What is that place?" Truth be told, Clarke’s seen her before and steered clear. There’s something about her that frightens Clarke, something that makes her heart pound and want to run in the other direction.

"That’s the law firm. The mergers and acquisitions one.” Raven says, breaking eye contact with the video for a moment to look at Clarke.

"No way would a lawyer go on a paper bag lunch stealing spree."

"No way would a lawyer wear a skirt that short." This time, Clarke breaks eye contact with the video to see Raven’s eyes wide and mouth hanging open. She’s known Raven since college, known that she’s interested in physical beauty, in whatever form or gender it takes. And she knows that Raven’s quick to speak and slow to act. She’ll gab on and on about a beautiful woman but loses her voice as soon as they’re face to face.

Like most of Raven’s other leering quips, Clarke chooses to ignore it. "Did you see the bag in her hands?"

"There was something."

"A paper bag?"

"We're watching the same video. Did you see it?"

"It was something."

"Probably just her own lunch."

"Unless it wasn't."

Then she’s gone from view and there’s someone else at the fridge.

"Oh, what about this guy? He looks seriously sketchy." Clarke’s definitely seen him before, too. Definitely thought that he was sketchy before, too. His hair’s long and unkempt and his clothes hang off of him, and in the hallways, a funny smell trails him wherever he goes – she thinks it might be a combination of deli meats, men’s deodorant, and maybe the faintest hint of weed.  

"Jasper? There's no way he's stealing your lunches."

"Do you know him?"

"I've run into him in the hallway a few times,” Raven says. “He's IT for the office across the hall from us. We’ve talked shop. He’s a good guy. I think."

"The non-profit?"

"Yeah, the one with the kids."

"He wouldn't steal my lunch,” Clarke’s already convinced and mentally crossing him off of her list. “Not a guy from a non-profit." It’s some coding in public schools gig and she can’t imagine that a guy like that would do a thing so heinous.

"But that's definitely a paper bag in his hands."

"Looks like he's just...yeah he's just moving it around, right? So it's still in the fridge at this point?"

"Unless there's another paper bag lunch in the fridge. Clarke, stop thinking that you’re the only person in the whole world who uses paper bags.”

Clarke does her best pouty face and looks back to the monitor.

"There he goes. Doesn't look like he's got it,” Raven says. Clarke’s not entirely convinced that Raves is unbiased in the Jasper matter and mentally reconsiders him as the potential Lunch Thief. “Then again, if he's stealing it, he's probably not going to be too obvious."

She doesn’t have too much time to consider Raven’s biases when there’s more action at the fridge. "Oh there's another guy who just took something from Jasper's hands. Where did he come from? What was that?"

"Looks too small to be your lunch. But that guy does have a sketchy look about him. I'll have to ask Jasper about him. Something about his eyebrows looks evil."

Clarke turns to look at Raven and they both erupt in laughter together. Maybe this idea wasn’t so bad. Maybe they are having a little fun. She won’t admit either to Raven just yet.

"Oh,” Raven says suddenly, eyes back on the screen, “there's another one at the fridge now."

"Where?"

"Her."

"That chick?"

"What office is she in?"

"I don’t think I’ve seen her before, “Clarke replies. She tries to look closer, but with such a low resolution, it’s not really possible. “It’s not the one who passed us in the hall the other day, right?"

"Oh yeah, the hot one from the law office? I don’t think it’s her, but this one looks just as hot. It’s hard to see with this shoddy camera. Maybe I should get a higher-res one?”

"You’re not going to get a higher res camera to perv on people, Raven,” Clarke scolds. “Put your libido away."

"I'm just saying,” she says, with a light punch to Clarke’s arm. “I'm not wrong."

She doesn’t have any rules about engaging Raven in this type of ogling, it’s just not usually her style. Half the time, she thinks Raven does it to try to goad her into joining her. This time, she takes the bait. "No, you're not."

"Oh, she's bending over. Really getting in there."

"Eyes on the prize, Reyes. I put the lunch in the back."

"She's got a peach." Clarke’s eyes go wide and she scoots a little closer to the monitor.

"You're supposed to be paying attention here, not ogling."

"A literal peach, Clarke. Did you pack a peach in your lunch bag?"

"Oh. I did!"

"She does have a figurative peach, too, though." Another bro-punch to the arm. Clarke's eyebrows raise as she watches the woman back away from the fridge. Reyes: not wrong again.

"Does she still have the peach?"

"Can't tell. Oh here comes that woman from the hall. The lawyer with the cheekbones and the skirt."

"What are they saying?"

Raven rolls her eyes at Clarke and considers explaining the intricacies of cheap spy cameras, but there’s more action on the silent screen. "Looks like they're arguing. Cheekbones is laughing like a maniac but Peach doesn't think it's funny."

"But does she have the peach?" If she gets any closer to the screen, Raven’s already decided she’s going to push Clarke’s face into it.

"It appears that she does not. Unless she handed it off to Cheekbones. It's hard to see Cheekbones from this angle. I wouldn't mind seeing her from more angles."

"They must work in the same office. You think Peach is a lawyer, too?" Clarke doesn’t want to call her Peach, but it slips and she figures it’s probably easier this way. She doesn’t know the woman’s name.

"Maybe. She's got the look. The button down, the tailored pants. I can see it."

“She’s cute.”

“Oh look at you, ogling the suspects now. I thought that was my job.”

“I’ve got eyes, too,” Clarke says, pulling her lip between her teeth to cut off a smile.

“Eyes for Peach.”

“Well, I can’t get too close, she’s now at the top of my list.”

**Author's Note:**

> have a theory about whodunit? check me out at factorsofex at tumblr


End file.
